The Consumer Financial Protection Agency should have been a legacy of enduring value. Today should have been a day of celebration. Instead, the new bureau is just another contentious mess, another debacle that dispirits even the optimists.

Congress has created the CFPB with so much oversight that calls for "improving" the CFPB are unfair to all of us who use financial services. These bills are transparent attempts to hobble the agency before it has even opened its doors.

I enthusiastically agreed to serve as an Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on the CFPB. The president and I are committed to the same vision -- leveling the playing field again.